Ads of the future

I've been thinking lately, and I've come to a resolution. I need to place some ads on the blog.

...

More exactly on the buildings of my board :D

When I posted this pic some weeks ago it was so obvious:

Fifty shades of grey

This city looks too dull and dark. You could argue there's nothing wrong with that given that, even in a RT setting, all the WH40K environment is supposed to look gritty and gloomy. Yes, I'm OK with that and it's an essential part of the ambientation. But that doesn't mean I have to play on a boring board! Part of this project is bringing a city to life, not having just a generic board with generic obstacles. Visually I need this board to have some more colour, and background wise I need it to look like a real city (or at least as a plausible one; I pretty much prefer that adjective). Dark, anguishing, oppressive, yes whatever you want. But part of modern life in any urban environment is advertising. That works for sci-fi too.

I had done one sign when I made my follow-on milk building, so I just had to follow the path:

This actually exists, it's Chinese toothpaste. Honestly

I then rescued a couple of pieces I had forgotten. When I got my LaserCutcard buildings, they both had huge billboards, but I never placed them, as I didn't know what to do exactly. Now it was time for it. I gathered a few card tokens. All of them actual labels from clothing (the wife got kinda suspicious when I volunteered to take all those card pieces apart for her...). They are rigid enough and some even have nice shapes. I then painted over them and got this:

Suber art unleashed

Well, I didn't need them to look nice or realistic. They didn't have to accomodate to our current vision of advertising nor even look visually pleasant. They serve a purpose, which is giving the impression of actual ads in a sci-fi context.You may notice a Blue Sun sign and other Mandarin inscriptions. If I ever dare to begin my Firefly/Serenity project, I wanna get sure I have some proper settings ;)

OK, so now they need some weathering. That's the dirty Warhammer touch. The first big billboard is one of the LaserCutCard ones. I wrote Ludi (Games in Latin Gothic, for a correct 40K ambientation) on one side and the same in Mandarin (according to Google Translator) on the other. If any Chinese speaker ever reads me, please correct my mistakes!

Ain't a rusty, dirty sign a perfect invitation for games and fun?

I'm not even trying to pronounce that

I really didn't know what to advertise on the other big billboard. I thought of a giant Arbites sign and something in the "we are watching" mood; but I thought it would be preposterous being the size this sign is. I went for something more universal...

Adeptus Mechanicus approved. It also works fine for any post-apoc setting

For all the rest I used pieces of card, as told before. No serious planning, just the first thing that came to mind for each one:

Oppidum. Obviously a construction company

I've used the white/orange scheme before, so I thought it would be OK relating it to some port company

Absolute retro looking. No idea of what I'm advertising, but seems to work here

Kind of an late 80's/early 90's look. Works for me

The label was already 'B' shaped. If it's good enough for real stuff, it's good enough for me

My concession to Firefly

All this large space just for this. Less is more

Oh, come on! This is totally justified and needed

They needed somewhere to stand. Cheap & easy solutions, as always. For example:

Others were made of wood pieces and rubbish stuff

So the final result was like this:

Casual bystander for scale

They all look like reliable companies and products

Not only I can use them for my urban setting, but for any post apoc wasteland fallen into oblivion

They were supposed to encourage customers. Yikes

Oops! I didn' t take a solo pic of the one below

Sorry, yesterday I had no time to deploy my whole board and buildings again for a proper shot. What I did is just taking a pic of some buildings so you can have an idea:

When on a complete board these are supposed to look better

Of course this is but an approach, I'd like to make some more stuff in this fashion. I'm thinking of signs hanging on the walls. They are much more usual to see and will also add visual impact.

From Ghost in the Shell. You get an idea of what I envision in my mind

 This is all for now. The town keeps on growing...